Proportional Representation and the Constituency Role in Britain

Thomas Carl Lundberg critically examines the claim that those members of Britain's devolved assemblies who are elected by party list proportional representation are somehow 'second-class' representatives. The Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly are elected by the mixed-member proportional (MMP) system, which combines single-member constituencies and multimember electoral regions to produce a proportional outcome. This combination of electoral methods, and competition between the representatives elected in two different ways, has generated controversy. The author uses empirical evidence, gathered from surveys and interviews, to assess the constituency role of those elected from party lists. This investigation also compares British representatives to their MMP-elected counterparts in Germany and New Zealand.